The holiday season brings many fun activities and rituals including parties, dinners, crafting events, decorating, and shopping for gifts. Using QuickSurveys, we were able to find out in 24 hours, exactly which rituals and habits 1100 US respondents have during this holiday season. Let’s look at the top findings.

Decoration Nation

Early birds: 13% decorate before Thanksgiving (18% of those were male versus 9% that were female. In addition, 23% of people decorate the day after Thanksgiving and 26% are decorated 3 weeks before Christmas.

Fake trees for the win: 41% of respondents put up a fake tree (50% of those were female), and 9% put up multiple fake trees in their home. Only 18% said they put up a real tree and 6% put up multiple real trees.

Small exterior decor: 64% of respondents use small decorations like wreaths and bow outside whereas 58% of respondents decorate outside with house or yard lights.

Men love lawn characters: Out of the 26% of respondents who include blow-up characters on the lawn for their holiday decorations, 33% were male versus the 20% female.

The aftermath: 18% take decorations down the day after their holiday, 47% take them down a week after the holiday and 29% take decorations down by the end of January.

Events / Time Spent:

2 events per week: On average, 54% of respondents say they attend 1-2 holiday events per week during the holiday season.

Dinner with the fam: The most popular event for the holiday season was a holiday dinner with family (60% of respondents). The second popular was dinner with friends.

People come to me: 34% claim that they are not traveling this holiday season because people are coming to their place to celebrate.

Multiple families, all the obligations: 47% of respondents say they split time between families during the holidays. In addition, 31% those who have a significant other say they split their time between their family and the significant other’s family.

Working out, works out: Interestingly, 35% say they can keep up with their normal exercise routine despite the multiple events they have to attend. A close 26% say that the holidays throw off the exercise routine and 13% actually will sneak in extra exercise times to counteract what they eat (19% of those were males!). 27% did say they did not have an exercise routine.

Gifts:

Last minute laziness: A whopping 39% complete shopping for gifts the week before their holiday starts, and 23% are done the DAY before their holiday starts.

Men shop before women: 15% say they are done shopping way before the holiday season with 19% of those being male and 11% being female.

The most popular gift options: 64% claim they purchase actual gifts that are store bought or bought online. In addition, 60% say they buy gift cards. Other gift options included 37% that give money, 25% that make their own gift (DIY), and 24% who give just a card.

To learn more about how Toluna QuickSurveys analyzes real-time data from each study, check out our blog on TolunaAnalytics and its functions.

This survey was run with Toluna QuickSurveys, the leading consumer digital insights platform. The data from this survey is based on 1,100 respondents, and Toluna’s proprietary weighting algorithm, SmartSelect was used for age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, region and household income to bring them into line with their actual proportions within the population. Toluna QuickSurveys can now guarantee a minimum of 1,000 nationally representative completed interviews – in no less than 21 countries – in 24 hours or less.